


Offering a New Friend Tea

by clefairytea



Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Clefairy's Holiday Fic Request Fest, Gen, Pre-Canon, Trans Snusmumriken | Snufkin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:41:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21719380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clefairytea/pseuds/clefairytea
Summary: The Snork Maiden was just beginning to whistle when she heard a little twig snapping. As fast as she could, she wheeled around, but her stalker was faster still, and ducked out of sight.Well, the Snork Maiden was frightened, but she was also beginning to get very angry. Whoever was stalking her had scared her and made her look very stupid in front of her brother, and she couldn't abide it much longer.“Whoever you are, I know you're there!” she said, plucking up all the courage she had. “Now I won’t have you hiding and watching me, so you might as well come out!”She waited with great tension, expecting some bright-eyed ghoulish lizard to lumber out, or some staring groke or other nasty creature. Imagine her surprise instead when a little round snufkin stepped out, holding something bundled in his arms. He had a pointed green hat, befitting a snufkin, with a lot of lilies clinging to it in an accidental-looking way. He wore a striped dress buttoned at the back, with a neckerchief tied at the collar.--Concerning Snufkin and the Snork Maiden's first meeting.
Relationships: Snorkfröken | The Snork Maiden & Snusmumriken | Snufkin
Comments: 13
Kudos: 164





	Offering a New Friend Tea

**Author's Note:**

> A holiday fic request for [@herb-acious](https://herb-acious.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. They do some of my fave art in the fandom so check them out!
> 
> We're going book!verse for this one lads, set before Comet in Moominland.
> 
> Warning because this fic discusses a trans male character menstruating. He's also an 11-ish year old orphan in the 40s so he also has absolutely no idea what it is.

Fishing with one’s tail was always delightful. The Snork Maiden knew other creatures fished with rods and nets and that sort of thing, but that was because the poor wretches had no tail, or had a tail that could only stay one colour. A proper Snork always fished with one’s tail, wiggling it in the water and turning it many different colours to trick fish into thinking it was a bit of food or a nice new friend. As soon as one felt a little on one’s tail, one would whip it out of the water and snatch up the little creature into a bucket.

Over the past few years travelling, the Snork Maiden had gotten rather good at it. She had fifteen little minnows in her bucket, while the Snork had twelve. Of course, he insisted that she had mixed their bukcets up, and in fact he was the one with fifteen minnows. Either way, they had enough for a lovely soup for their supper. With the cowslip wine the Snork had received for his invention in the last town, it would be a fine evening.

They were turning to leave with their buckets, however, when the Snork Maiden noticed something unusual.

“Look at that!” she exclaimed. “A hole has appeared while we were fishing!”

She pointed to a hole, the sort a mole or rabbit would tunnel through, that looked freshly turned out.

“Nonsense!” said the Snork, not even looking at the hole. “It must have been there when we arrived.”

“No, no. It wasn’t. You see, this morning I saw a lovely patch of Peruvian lilies there, but now there is only a hole.”

“You are being silly and imagining things, as always,” replied the Snork, even though he was not very sure himself. You see, the Snork was very proud of how clever he was, and thus found it very difficult when his little sister noticed things before him. Unfortunately for him, she did this very often.

The Snork Maiden frowned and stamped her little foot, but when her brother was determined one thing was another, there was no changing her mind.

“Anyway, what do we care about funny holes,” he continued. “We need to make dinner.”

So the Snork Maiden followed her brother back to their campsite, where they set about preparing fish soup. She was not concentrating very well, however, so disturbed by the hole that appeared. Once, she was sure she saw a pair of eyes, bright as two moons, staring at her from the branches of a nearby tree.

Being a little girl and understandably frightened of strange eyes staring in the dark, she squealed and tipped over the coffee she was brewing. It splashed all over the Snork’s favourite blanket.

“What’s wrong?” asked the Snork, standing up straight.

“There was a funny pair of eyes up in the tree!” cried the Snork Maiden, pointing up into the tree. All that looked back was the dark tangle of leaves and branches. The Snork went over and climbed up. He stayed there for a long time, checking between the branches and twigs. As much as they fought, the Snork still worried for his sister and wanted her safe.

Yet when he returned, he was scowling terribly. He had found nothing and scratched up his paws on the branches as well.

“You are behaving very oddly this evening!” he scolded her. “Now, go to the stream and wash my blanket! You will have to take the washing board and scrub it, or the stain will set.”

“I know how to clean a blanket!” said the Snork Maiden. Huffing, she bundled the blanket up and took it to the little stream, walking past the unusual hole. She was very certain it had not been there this morning.

Kneeling by the stream, she filled a little basin with water and made it frothy with wood-ash, and then began to scrub at the blanket.

She was just beginning to whistle when she heard a little twig snapping. As fast as she could, she wheeled around, but her stalker was faster still, and ducked out of sight.

Well, the Snork Maiden was frightened, but she was also beginning to get very angry. Whoever was stalking her had scared her and made her look very stupid in front of her brother, and she couldn't abide it much longer.

“Whoever you are, I know you're there!” she said, plucking up all the courage she had. “Now I won’t have you hiding and watching me, so you might as well come out!”

She waited with great tension, expecting some bright-eyed ghoulish lizard to lumber out, or some staring groke or other nasty creature. Imagine her surprise instead when a little round snufkin stepped out, holding something bundled in his arms. He had a pointed green hat, befitting a snufkin, with a lot of lilies clinging to it in an accidental-looking way. He wore a striped dress buttoned at the back, with a neckerchief tied at the collar.

All of this was very surprising, but most of all was how frightened he looked. His face was very white and his eyes were wide. Nobody who looked so small and frightened could be any threat to her. All at once, the Snork Maiden forgot all about her anger.

“Hello,” she said. The Snork Maiden had such a gentle nature, that it was hard for even the shyest little creatures to stay frightened of her.

“Hello there,” said the Snufkin. “I don’t usually sneak about, but I am in a funny way at the moment.”

“Well! I suppose I can forgive that,” she said. “We all have funny days. Come here and tell me why you were sneaking.”

The Snufkin approached her, and it was then that the Snork Maiden noticed that his feet and legs were quite bare under his pink-and-white stripe dress. Of course, his coat was big enough it did not look rude, but it was odd. He held himself strangely as well, clutching his stomach and cringing.

“I only just broke out of prison, you see. So I needed to sneak about,” the Snufkin said, “but I’d also like to ask you something, if I can. I needed to make certain you are not secretly police.”

“Of course we are not police,” said the Snork Maiden, a little offended, because who would want to be mistaken for a police officer? “Now what is you’d like to ask.”

“Mm. Well, your father looks very scholarly, and…”

The Snork Maiden laughed at that.

“My father!” she said.

“Is he not?” said the Snufkin, shocked. “You are much too young for a husband, surely?”

“Surely indeed!” she said. “He is my brother. I’m afraid my father passed when I was very little. As did my mother. It is just my brother and I.”

“Oh. That’s terrible,” he said, sounding sincerely sad for her.

“Where is your Mamma and Pappa?” she asked.

“I don’t have either. Or any brothers or sisters. I was found in a basket,” he said. The Snork Maiden felt very sorry for him and stopped scrubbing the blanket. She did not remember her own Mamma and Pappa very well at all, and the Snork could be particular and difficult, but it must be much lonelier to have never had anyone at all.

“So you are alone?” she asked.

“Yes. I’d rather not talk about it right now, if you please,” he said. “I’ve been in such an odd mood lately that talking about sad things will do me no good at all.”

“Alright then,” replied the Snork Maiden kindly. “So what is it about my brother?”

The Snufkin took off his big hat, holding it nervously in his paws. He had only belatedly remembered that one was supposed to take off their hat when asking for a favour. While a snufkin does not usually care for such things, even they agreed that one should be polite when asking for favours.

“Well, I was wondering if he was perhaps…a doctor?” he asked. “I know it is not your problem, but I’m afraid I may be terribly unwell.”

“Oh, how dreadful!” cried the Snork Maiden. “You do look so pale. I’m sorry, he is not a doctor. I will help if I can though.”

“Do you think you could?”

“I read a great deal, you know,” she said. “Now just tell me what the matter is and we will figure it out together.”

The Snufkin nodded at this and thought carefully.

“I suppose right now it is a terrible tummy ache that is the worst thing, but…” he said and trailed off, looking at the bundle in his arms. “I woke up the other morning in my jail cell and – oh, I don’t know how to explain it! You’re much too nice and pretty to talk about rude things with!”

“What?” she said. The Snufkin shook his head and, with a breath, thrust the bundle into her arms.

Unfolding it, she discovered it was a pair of chap’s trousers. She was about to be very offended, thinking he was giving her his laundry to do, when she saw a stain right on the legs, dark and red.

“I don’t know,” said the Snufkin, looking horribly distressed. “I woke up and I was bleeding, terribly badly, but there was no wound at all. It would not stop. I didn’t fancy the guard discovering, so dug my way out of jail right away.”

The Snork Maiden stared at the stain and then back at the Snufkin, and something she read long ago came to the forefront of her mind. The Snork Maiden read a great deal, you see. When they went into towns, the Snork would work for people by inventing things and fixing things. He did not like having girls around when he did these things, so would leave her in the care of the nearest librarian. So the Snork Maiden, bored and terribly lonely, would read and read.

There was one book she read she was suddenly grateful for. It was about all the things that happened to one when one grew up. It had been a little embarrassing to read, because the book had contained pictures of many different species with no clothes on, but it had all been done in a very pragmatic and scientific way, so it was not rude at all, you see.

One thing it mentioned, was a peculiar and frightening thing that happened to girl mymbles and joxters and other types of mumriks when they got old enough.

She squinted at him. She had been certain he was a boy, but trolls find it terribly hard to tell with mumriks, and mumriks with trolls. There was nothing for it. Sometimes one simply had to ask a rude question to avoid being more rude later.

“May I ask you something?” she said. “Are you a girl?”

The Snufkin blinked, as though this was the last thing he was expecting.

“No,” he said, very certainly. “Although when I was younger, that was what people told me I was. They got quite annoyed when I disagreed and showed me all sorts of diagrams to try and prove their point. But I most certainly know better than them.”

“Alright,” she said, because he sounded so sure that he must be right. There had surely been stranger things in this world, after all. “How old are you?”

He thought.

“I’m not sure. I have been counting for six years or so, but one can only start counting when one is old enough to know how to do so.”

“Then let’s say you are eleven, like me,” she said.

“I’d rather be twelve,” he said. “I don’t much like prime numbers, you see. I find them much too self-satisfied.”

“Twelve then,” she said, a bit impatiently. In the Snork Maiden’s opinion, he seemed younger than her, but she wasn’t going to argue the point. “I think I know what is happening, and you are not sick at all.”

“I’m not?” he said, looking enormously relieved, but then her frowned. “Then what is happening?”

“It is an ordinary thing for mumriks, although normally girls,” she said. “I’ve only read about it, but it will only happen for a few days. And then you will stop bleeding and stop being sore.”

“Oh, splendid news!” he said, tossing his hat up in joy.

The Snork Maiden winced, because there was also a spot of bad news along with the good.

“Although, you will have to do it every month from now on.”

“Every _month_?” he cried, eyes wide with horror. He winced and clutched his stomach again. “This is much too painful to do every month. And my only trousers are ruined already.”

“Did you try to wash them?” she asked, looking at the trousers.

“Yes,” he said glumly. “I dunked them in the stream over and over but it did no good.”

“Dunked them!” she said, wondering if this strange boy knew anything at all. “That is not how you clean clothes.”

He laughed, as though she’d said something very funny.

“Of course it is! It’s very practical. I usually take a swim, so I can clean myself and my clothes all at once,” he said. “But as the stain was so large and strange, I took them off and threw them in alone.”

Yes, he was definitely a boy. Only a boy could be so useless, after all.

“Right. Well, I think I will have to teach you how to clean things properly,” she said. “That’s a nice dress, and it would be a shame if it ended up ruined. Wherever did you get it?”

“I made it,” he said with a smile. “I travelled with a circus for a while and they gave me some of the old tent when they were done with it. So there’s a trick to cleaning things, is there? I’d certainly like to learn!”

He stepped over to investigate the washing board, but then cringed again, both his paws going to his gut.

“Oh dear, I don’t think now is a time to learn new things,” she said, rubbing his back. “Is your tummy still hurting terribly?”

“Yes,” he said. “It comes and goes and I’m sore in many more places than that.”

She nodded, thinking about this carefully. After a moment, she placed the blanket and trousers in her basin and picked it up under one arm.

“Come back to our camp for a while. I can brew something that will help your stomach. My Mamma taught me it,” she said. Truth be told, she wasn’t certain the last part was true. She had just always known how to brew something for an upset tummy. However, he did not remember where she learned it. Yet it seemed like something a Mamma would teach her daughter, and it was a nice thought.

“A potion by a Mamma! That certainly sounds wonderful,” he said. “You must let me return the favour. I can fish and sew and walk on my hands and make soup and –“

The Snork Maiden shook her head and held up a paw to quiet him. She had not known him long, but she was already certain the silly Snufkin would list everything he’d ever done in his life if she let him.

“You can return the favour when you’re well,” she said, taking his paw gently. “For now, I think I would like to hear about your time in jail. How did someone as little as you get arrested?”

“It’s a splendid story. You see, I was looking for dinner when I happened upon a crop of melons…”

The two little creatures wandered back to the Snork Maiden’s camp, paw in paw. Unseen above them, a star with a tail grew larger in the black night sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Their Comet in Moominland characterisations are so cute. They're just little babies. Snufkin's so weird and excitable, Snorkmaiden is so silly and changeable.


End file.
